CHAPTER II.—LEAVES FROM A YOUNG GENTLEMAN’S JOURNAL.
Before setting forth on this memorable pilgrimage to nowhere, I promised a certain friend of mine, in literary Bohemia, to keep notes of my adventures, with a view to future publication, illustrated by my own brilliant sketches. I fear the promise was a rash one, firstly, because I am constitutionally lazy and averse to literary exertion; and secondly, because I have, as yet, met with no adventures worth writing about. Not that I have altogether lost my first enthusiasm for the idea. There would be novelty in the title, at any rate: ‘Cruises in a Caravan, by Charles Brinkley, with illustrations by the author; photographic frontispiece, the caravan, with Tim as large as life, smirking self-consciously in delight at having his ‘pictur’ taken. My friend B——— has promised to find me a publisher, if I will only persevere. Well, we shall see. If the book does not progress, it will be entirely my own fault; for I have any amount of time on my hands. Paint as hard as I may all day, I have always the long evenings, when I must either write, read, or do nothing.
“So I am beginning this evening, exactly a fortnight after my first start from Chester. I purchased the caravan there from a morose individual with one eye, who had had it built with a view to the exhibition of a Wild Man of Patagonia, but said Wild Man having taken it into his head to return to County Cork, where he was born, and the morose individual having no definite idea of a novelty to take his place, the caravan came into the market. Having secured this travelling palace, duly furnished with window-blinds, a piece of carpet, a chair bedstead, a table, a stove, cooking utensils, not to speak of my own artistic paraphernalia, I sent over to Mulrany, Co. Mayo, for my old servant, Tim-na-Chaling, or Tim o’ the Ferry—otherwise Tim Lenney; and with his assistance, when he arrived, I purchased a strong mare at Chester Fair. All these preliminaries being settled, we started one fine morning soon after daybreak, duly bound for explorations along the macadamized highways and byways of North Wales.
“I am pleased to say that Tim, after he had recovered the first shock of seeing a peripatetic dwelling-house, took to the idea wonderfully. ‘Sure, it’s just like the ould cabin at home,’ he averred, ‘barrin’ the wheels, and the windies, and the chimley, and the baste to pull it along;’ and I think the resemblance would have been complete in his eyes, if there had only been two or three pigs to trot merrily behind the back door. As for myself, I took to the nomad life as naturally as if I had never in my life been in a civilized habitation. To be able to go where one pleased, to dawdle as one pleased, to stop and sleep where one pleased, was certainly a new sensation. My friends, observing my sluggish ways, had often compared me to that interesting creature, the snail; now the resemblance was complete, for I was a snail indeed, with my house comfortably fixed upon my shoulders, crawling tranquilly along.
“Of course the caravan has its inconveniences. Inside, to quote the elegant simile of our progenitors, there is scarcely room enough to swing a cat in; and when my bed is made, and Tim’s hammock is swung just inside the door, the place forms the tiniest of sleeping-chambers. Then our cooking arrangements are primitive, and as Tim has no idea whatever of the culinary art, beyond being able to boil potatoes in their skins, and make very doubtful ‘stirabout,’ there is a certain want of variety in our repasts. To break the monotony of this living I endeavour, whenever we come to a town with a decent hotel in it, to take a square meal away from home.
“Besides the inconveniences which I have mentioned, but which were, perhaps, hardly worth chronicling, the caravan has social drawbacks, more particularly embarrassing to a modest man like myself. It is confusing, for example, on entering a town, or good-sized village, to be surrounded by the entire juvenile population, who cheer us vociferously, under the impression that we constitute a ‘show,’ and afterwards, on ascertaining their mistake, pursue us with opprobious jeers; and it is distressing to remark that our mode of life, instead of inviting confidence, causes us to be regarded with suspicion by the vicar of the parish and the local policemen. We are exposed, moreover, to ebullitions of bucolic humour, which have taken the form of horse-play on more than one occasion. Tim has had several fights with the Welsh peasantry, and has generally come off victorious; though on one occasion he would have been overpowered by numbers if I had not gone to his assistance. Generally speaking, nothing will remove from the rural population an idea that the caravan forms an exhibition of some sort. When I airily alight and stroll through a village, sketch-book in hand, I have invariably at my heels a long attendant train of all ages, obviously under the impression that I am looking for a suitable ‘pitch,’ and am going to ‘perform.’
“To avoid these and similar inconveniences we generally halt for the night in some secluded spot—some roadside nook, or outlying common. But there is a fatal attraction in the caravan: it seems to draw spectators, as it were, out of the very bowels of the earth. No matter how desolate the place we have chosen, we have scarcely made ourselves comfortable when an audience gathers, and stragglers drop in, amazed and open-mouthed. I found it irksome at first to paint in the open air, with a gazing crowd at my back making audible comments on my work as it progressed; but I soon got used to it, and having discovered certain good ‘subjects’ here and there among my visitors, I take the publicity now as a matter of course. Even when busy inside, I am never astonished to see strange noses flattened against the windows—strange faces peeping in at the door. The human temperament accustoms itself to anything. When all is said and done, it is flattering to be an object of such public interest; and I do believe that when I return to civilization, and find no one caring in the least what I do, I shall miss the worldly tribute which is now my daily due.
“I begin this record in the Island of Anglesea, where we have arrived after our fortnight’s wanderings in the more mountainous districts of the mainland. Anglesea, I am informed, is chiefly famous for its pigs and its wild ducks. So far as I have yet explored it, I find it flat and desolate enough; but I have been educated in Irish landscapes, and don’t object to flatness when combined with desolation. I like these dreary meadows, these black stretches of melancholy moorland, these wild lakes and lagoons.
“At the present moment I am encamped in a spot where, in all probability, I shall remain for days. I came upon it quite by accident, about midday yesterday, when on my way to the market town of Pencroes; or rather, when I imagined that I was going thither, while I had in reality, after hesitating at three cross roads, taken the road which led in exactly the opposite direction. The way was desolate and dreary beyond measure—stretches of morass and moorland on every side, occasionally rising into heathery knolls or hillocks, or strewn with huge pieces of stone like the moors in Cornwall Presently the open moorland ended, and we entered a region of sandy hillocks, sparsely ornamented here and there with long harsh grass. If one could imagine the waves of the ocean, at some moment of wild agitation, suddenly frozen to stillness, and retaining intact their tempestuous forms, it would give some idea of the hillocks I am describing. They rose on every side of the road, completely shutting out the view, and their pale livid yellowness, scarcely relieved with a glimpse of greenness, was wearisome and lonely in the extreme. As we advanced among them, the road we were pursuing grew worse and worse, till it became so choked and covered with drifted sand as to be hardly recognizable, and I need hardly say that it was hard work for one horse to pull the caravan along; more than once, indeed, the wheels fairly stuck, and Tim and I had to pull with might and main to get them free.
“We had proceeded in this manner for some miles, and I was beginning to realize the fact that we were out of our reckoning, when, suddenly emerging from between two sand-hills, I saw a wide stretch of green meadow land, and beyond it a glorified piece of water. The sun was shining brightly, the water sparkled like a mirror, calm as glass, and without a breath. As we appeared, a large heron rose from the spot in the water-side where we had been standing
Still as a stone, without a sound
Above his dim blue shade,
and sailed leisurely away. Around the lake, which was about a mile in circumference, the road ran winding till it reached the further side, where more sand-hills began; but between these sand-hills I caught a sparkling glimpse of more water, and (guided to my conclusion by the red sail of a fishing-smack just glimmering in the horizon line) I knew that further water was—the sea.
“The spot had all the charm of complete desolation, combined with the charm which always, to my mind, pertains to lakes and lagoons. Eager as a boy or a loosened retriever, I ran across the meadow, and found the grass long and green, and sown with innumerable crowsfoot flowers; underneath the green was sand again, but here it glimmered like gold-dust. As I reached the sedges on the lake-side, a teal rose in full summer plumage, wheeled swiftly round the lake, then returning, splashed down boldly, and swam within a stone’s throw of the shore, when, peering through the rushes, I caught a glimpse of his mate, paddling anxiously along with eight little fluffs of down behind her. Then, just outside the sedges, I saw the golden shield of water broken by the circles of rising trout. It was too much. I hastened back to the caravan, and informed Tim that I had no intention of going any further—that day at least.
“So here we have been since yesterday, and, up to this, have not set eyes upon a single soul. Such peace and quietness is a foretaste of Paradise. As this is the most satisfactory day I have yet spent in my pilgrimage, although it bears, at the same time, a family likeness to the other days of the past fortnight, I purpose setting down verbatim, seriatim, and chronologically the manner in which I occupied myself from dawn to sunset.
“6 a.m.—Wake and see that Tim has already disappeared, and folded up his hammock. Observe the morning sun looking in with a fresh cheery countenance at the window. Turn over again with a yawn, and go to sleep for another five minutes.
“7.15 a.m.—Wake again, and discover, by looking at my watch, that instead of five minutes I have slept an hour and a quarter. Spring up at once, and slip on shirt and trousers; then pass out, barefooted, into the open air. No sign of Tim, but a fire is lighted close to the caravan, which shadows it from the rays of the morning sun. Stroll down to the lake, and, throwing off what garments I wear, prepare for a bath. Cannot get out for a swim on account of the reeds. The bath over, return and finish my toilet in the caravan.
“8 a.m.—Tim has reappeared. He has been right down to the sea-shore, a walk of about two miles and a half. He informs me, to my disgust, that there is some sort of a human settlement there, and a lifeboat station. He has brought back in his baglet, as specimens of the local products, a dozen new-laid eggs, some milk, and a loaf of bread. The last, I observe, is in a fossil state. I asked who sold it him? He answers, William Jones.
“8.30 a.m.—We breakfast splendidly. Even the fossil loaf yields sustenance, after it is cut up and dissolved in hot tea. Between whiles, Tim informs me that the settlement down yonder is, in his opinion, a poor sort of a place. There are several white-washed cottages, and a large roofless house for all the world like a church. Devil the cow or pig did he see at all, barrin’ a few hens. Any boats? I ask. Yes, one with the bottom knocked out, belonging to William Jones.
“Tim has got this name so pat, that my curiosity begins to be aroused. ‘Who the deuce is William Jones?’ ‘Sure, thin,’ says Tim, ‘he’s the man that lives down beyant, by the sea.’ I demand, somewhat irritably, if the place contains only one inhabitant. Devil another did Tim see, he explains,—barrin’ William Jones.
“2.30 a.m. (s.c.)—Start painting in the open air, under the shade of a large white cotton umbrella. Paint on till 1 p.m.
“1 p.m.—Take a long walk among the sand-hills, avoiding the settlement beyond the lake. Don’t want to meet any of the aboriginals, more particularly William Jones. Walking here is like running up and down Atlantic billows, assuming said billows to be solid; now I am lost in the trough of the sand, now I re-emerge on the crest of the solid wave. Amusing, but fatiguing. I soon lose myself, every hillock being exactly like another. Suddenly, a hare starts from under my feet, and goes leisurely away. I remember an old amusement of mine in the west of Ireland, and I track puss by her footprints—now clearly and beautifully printed in the soft sand of the hollows, now more faintly marked on the harder sides of the ridges. The sun blazes down, the refraction of the heat from the sand is overpowering, the air is quivering, sparkling, and pulsating, as if full of innumerable sand-crystals. A horrible croak from overhead startles me, and looking up, I see an enormous raven, wheeling along in circles, and searching the ground for mice or other prey.
“Looking at my watch, I find that I have been toiling in this sandy wilderness for quite two hours. Time to get back and dine. Climb the nearest hillock, and look round to discover where I am. Can see nothing but the sandy billows on every side, and am entirely at a loss which way to go. At last, after half an hour’s blind wandering, stumble by accident on the road by the lakeside, and see the caravan in the distance.
“4 p.m.—Dinner. Boiled potatoes, boiled eggs, fried bacon. Tim’s cooking is primitive, but I could devour anything—even William Jones’s fossil bread. I asked if any human being has visited the camp. ‘Sorra one,’ Tim says, looking rather disappointed. He has got to feel himself a public character, and misses the homage of the vulgar.
“Paint again till 6 p.m.
“A beautiful sunset. The sand-hills grow rosy in the light, the lake deepens from crimson to purple, the moon comes out like a silver sickle over the sandy sea. A thought seizes me as the shadows increase. Now is the time to entice the pink trout from their depths in the lake. I get out my fishing-rod and line, and, selecting two or three flies which seem suitable, prepare for action. My rod is only a small singlehanded one, and it is difficult to cast beyond the sedges, but the fish are rising thickly out in the tranquil pools, and, determined not to be beaten, I wade in to the knees. Half a dozen small trout, each about the size of a small herring, reward my enterprise. When I have captured them, the moon is high up above the sand-hills, and it is quite dark.
“Such is the chronicle of the past day. By the light of my lamp inside the caravan I have written it down. It has been all very tranquil and uneventful, but very delightful, and a day to be marked with a white stone in one respect—that from dawn to sunset I have not set eyes on a human being, except my servant.
“Stop, though! I am wrong. Just as I was returning from my piscatorial excursion to the lake I saw, passing along the road in the direction of the sea, a certain solitary horseman, who accosted me not too civilly on the roadside the night before last. He scowled at me in passing, and of course recognized me by the aid of the caravan. His name is Monk, of Monkshurst, and he seems to be pretty well monarch of all he surveys. I have an impression that Mr. Monk, of Monkshurst, and myself are destined to be better, or worse, acquainted.”